Receta de Fabada Asturiana - Fabada - Asturian Bean Stew Recipe

La Tienda Kitchens

Hearty, satisfying fabada stew is the pride of Asturias. Chorizo and morcilla sausages add a rich, smoky flavor to the famous fabada beans. These buttery, smooth beans have an uncanny ability to absorb the flavors of all the other ingredients.
Once a simple country dish, fabada is now a venerated symbol of the region, and great care is given to the quality of each ingredient. We offer all the ingredients you need to prepare this classic cool weather dish.

Preparation

STEP 1

Soak the shank overnight, changing the water once. Soften the beans overnight in cold water.

STEP 2

Sweat the bacon, onion and garlic in a pan containing the olive oil until transparent. Add the meat and beans and just enough water to cover the ingredients. Season with the bay leaf, saffron, paprika and pepper.

STEP 3

Bring to a boil and simmer on medium heat for around 1 1/2 hours. Stir several times during cooking and add more water if necessary. When the beans are almost soft, add the sausages. Adjust the seasoning and leave to simmer until the beans are completely soft.

STEP 4

Before serving, remove the meat and sausage from the pan, cut it into pieces and combine with the beans.

Reviews (4)

jpFoodie

After thinking about this dish for months, we finally invited friends for a Spanish dinner last night. The authentic fabada beans are quite expensive, but we decided to do it right, and I'm really glad we did. The beans are very special with an elegant, creamy texture. They absorb the rich flavors of the broth perfectly. We used Spanish chorizo and morcilla sausages. The chorizo is very salty, so watch out for that if sodium is a concern. The morcilla is interesting stuff, and adds a wonderful herbal earthiness to the dish. I definitely recommend it.
The recipe works pretty well, except I'll bet no one in America can find a real Lacon - dry-cured pork shank. I'm sure it would be wonderful, but it's simply not to be found. (Someone should ask the Smithfield ham people to make 'em.) But I thought the slightly pungent flavor of dry cured pork would be important to the dish, so instead I used an 8 oz piece of cured salt pork, 4 oz chunk of serano ham, and an 8 oz slab of pancetta. I soaked the cured meat overnight to eliminate some of the salt, changing the water several times. Then when cooking the dish, I added a 1 lb smoked pork shank along with the cured pork. The combination was really delicious. I modified the recipe by starting with the onion-bacon-garlic mixture, adding the cured and smoked pork with the water. This I simmered for about 45 minutes. THEN I added the soaked beans to the broth, and the paprika. (I put the saffron in later, along with the sausages.)
Another small problem with the recipe is timing. It implies that the dish is ready in a little more than 1 1/2 hours. My beans didn't approach tenderness until about 2 hours. Then I removed the pork pieces to trim away remaining fat and remove the shank bones. Then I added the sausages. The beans seemed to be perfect in about another 1/2 hour. I selected the lean pieces of pork that still had flavor, and added them back to the broth along with the cut up sausages.
The dish was truly spectacular! Everyone absolutely loved it. We had a fresh crusty bread with it to sop up that perfect broth. The recipe with 14 oz beans makes enough for about 6. By the way, a Muga goes beautifully with this.
Our appetizer was Bacalao al Pil-Pil served with Albarino. Altogether it was a great dinner.

Natalia

We love this recipe. It freezes beautifully, so we make a big batch in autumn to use all winter. Like the other reviewer, we always have to cook the beans for about 2 hours before they become tender. Also, we only use one morcilla (Quijote) because they are so big. We never add salt because there is already plenty of salt in the meat products that are added. Finally, being garlic fans, we use two whole heads of garlic rather than one measly clove. Because it cooks for so long, the garlic flavor is not overpowering.

Rita

I've tasted this stew when I went on vacation in Spain and have always yearn for its taste. Found La Tienda and the necessary ingredients and I cooked it over Christmas dinner. It was a success and everybody loved it. I had to use the serrano ham though since I don't know where to find the dried ham. I still am not used to the taste of morcillo. The stew cooked for about 1 1/2 hours and definitely less than 2 hours to achieve the tenderness. I guess it depends on the pot and how much heat you are using.